Staff Party

 

Mike and Brent manipulating an orange.

 

Colin rips one over the 5th green.

 

Staff Party

Staff Party

 

Ulla and Paul doin their thang.

 

The big dawg has arrived.

2012 Staff Party

 

Tommy giving Maxfli a tummy rub.

 

Brent and Amit getting ready to light er up.

 

Ulla Laventure taking it easy.

 

The girls getting "stuff" ready.

Great Horned Owl

 

Another bird that will take over an old crows nest is the Great horned owl.  This owl can be found from Alaska all the way down to South America.  It tends to be a solitary animal and can live up to 28 years.  These pictures were taken on the 12th hole.

Pied-billed grebe

 

I think that I have seen this little guy for the past 5 seasons at the golf course.  He seems to arrive at pretty much the same time of year and will stay for a while before the migration south.  The migration can be as far as 3,200 km.

Not here!

 

It's never a good thing when there is water, likely from the irrigation system, coming up from the base of a 40 foot poplar tree.

Often times the water will travel a fair distance and emerge at where there is least resistance.  I had visions of a pretty big dig when I got nominated to do this repair.

 

Fortunately the broken pipe was directly below the water and with a shovel and an axe it turned out to be a pretty easy repair.  But the question is: what came first, the pipe or the tree?

12th hole

Tyson is one of the new turf employees this season and he managed to snap this great picture of the 12th hole one evening.

2012 Staff

 

Once again I had an awesome maintenance crew that worked very hard to keep the course conditions at a consistently high level.  In the front row there are the Lees brothers, Mike and Brent (Assistant Superintendent) and in the second row (L to R) there is myself, Dale, John (Turf Technician), Terry, Jayme and Tyson.  In the back row we have Dustyn, Colin, Clayton and Don.  Thanks to all you guys for your hard work and dedication and congratulations to Dale Deyo who was 2012 Turf Employee of the Year.

Falcons

 

One of the benefits of having crows on the golf course is that they build very good nests and only use them for one season.  The following year, birds such as these Merlins, take over these nests and this family nested in a spruce tree on the 18th hole.

Republic of Alberta

 

I'm not sure who this Rolls Royce belongs to but I just had to throw this onto the blog.

10th hole

 

A nice morning picture of the 10th fairway on July 5, 2012.

Great Blue Heron

 

One of the most regular visitors to the golf course each day is the Great Blue Heron, one of the three largest herons in the world.  We think that more than one heron visits the course in search of food, primarily fish, and the large one stands 1.3m (4.5 ft) high.  Although they feed at the golf course, they nest elsewhere, usually in colonies in trees over water.